Series 9 Episode 5: Who's Feeling Ejected, Then?

Andrew: Here we go, then; the first episode of Last of the Summer Wine broadcast during my lifetime. Not that I expect the Summer Wine world to suddenly become a lot more recognisable… I think I described last week’s episode as ‘Edwardian’, and this is certainly not a show of 1987 in the same way that the first series was very definitely a show of 1973.

Bob: Ah, really? You think we’re entering the ‘timeless’ era of Summer Wine? That’s interesting, and a bit of a shame for you… the 1970s episodes were so redolent of my childhood, and I was hoping you’d get a similar frisson of nostalgia from the late 1980s and 1990s series. I think there are still elements of the show that reflect the feel of the 1980s (which were a lot more grim and grotty than a lot of TV retrospectives would have you believe… there was no power dressing or outsized mobile phones on Teesside, believe me) but I know what you mean. The 1970s episodes were often specifically about the issues of that decade; with the disctinctly post-industrialised landscape and issues of the Holme Valley sometimes combined with specific events like the Silver Jubilee. There’s been a bit less of that kind of thing recently.

I laughed out loud at the opening sequence though, with Compo bouncing up and down on some unseen contraption, boinging away behind a dry stone wall. I just like the sight of old men boinging. I’m that shallow.

Andrew: Following… whatever was going on in that field, Compo staggers into the cafè. Bill Owen is clearly having a ball here, chewing the scenery with physical comedy. It’s nice to spend a little more time with Crusher here, as well. He feels a touch underused of late, but comes out with an intriguing line here:

Crusher: I never would have bothered having all them tattoos if I’d known I was going to end up in a frock.

What do we think Crusher’s tattoos are of, then?

Bob: Your baby face, all over his chest. The only appropriate way to mark your entry into the world. I thought that line was a very telling sign of the times, actually… back in 1987, big, butch bikers like Crusher were amongst the very few people that you’d ever expect to have a tattoo! The only people I remember having tattoos during my childhood were sailors and nutcases. They’re everywhere now, though. I bet Mary Berry has got one.

But you’re right, it’s lovely to have a bit of Crusher time, and yet again… there’s a lovely rapport between Bill Owen and Jonathan Linsley. ‘Howdo, little Crushy!’ cries Compo, chuckling away at Crusher’s cheek. There’s real warmth there, and it’s lovely. And hey, there you go! A bona fide 1980s reference! Ivy describes Crusher as the cafe’s ‘nuclear deterrent’. The terrifying Cold War years had only just started to thaw by early 1987… in fact, it looks like Mikhail Gorbachev started talking about ‘Glasnost’ only a matter of weeks before this episode was broadcast. You could imagine Crusher being deployed at Greenham Common.

Andrew: So why has Seymour invented this ejector seat? I’m starting to suspect we might not get an answer to that fundamental question! So far, there’s a slightly unpolished feel to this instalment. Even when Compo ponders Nora Batty – recently a frequent whimsical highlight – it all comes across as a little bit simplistic. Nora cleans, and Compo is dirty.

Bob: It’s a real departure from the format, isn’t it? There’s no big build-up to Seymour creating this invention, nor any explanation as to why he’s done so… the ejector seat is already fully formed and operational at the start of the episode. I do like this scene of it being left outside the cafe though, and drawing a curious crowd who think it’s ‘the electric chair’. There’s something that rings true about inexplicable behaviour or objects in public places causing instant consternation. My Mum says that. when she was a kid in the 1950s, she and her friends would stand in Middlesbrough town centre pointing at completely non-existent objects in the sky. Within seconds, a little crowd would gather around them, squinting at the clouds and trying to figure out the subject of their fascination.

And, as we shift into Wesley’s garage to find a car capable of housing said ejector seat, we gain an interesting insight into Seymour’s character. ‘I’ve always known life was unfair,’ he muses, ‘ever since that terrible Christmas Day when it broke my train set’. You surely have to suspect that Seymour broke his own train set with some infernal tinkering, but like every good egomaniac, he can’t see that. As far as he’s concerned, the universe is conspiring against him… because, clearly, he’s at the centre of it.

Andrew: Here’s an oddity. As Compo prepares to be strapped to the top of the car, a video-mixed clock wipe ushers us from one filmed scene to another. Very unusual to see in Summer Wine, and I can’t help but wonder if this is because the episode is once again a little undercooked. or perhaps just rushed into production. I certainly can’t imagine that transition having been planned at the scripting stage.

Bob: A video-wiped mixed what? I had to wind that back and watch that again, you bugger. We’re not all Stanley Kubricks, you know. I see what you mean, though… the way the scene changes like a clock’s hands moving around? It’s very George Lucas!

Andrew: As soon as the car speeds off, some decent yet still very obvious CSO work rears its head whenever the camera needs to see Compo close up. That’s understandable given how dangerous the stunt looks, and I suppose the technique has a charm of its own, but I’ll never understand how nobody at the BBC ever seemed to figure out that a bumpy and jostling background plate of driving film needs the studio camera to be equally unsteady in order to look anything less than phoney!

Bob: That’s right… you distract them with the dodgy camera effects, and I’ll get down to the real business of stalking the Last of the Summer Wine cars on the DVLA website. Barry’s red Ford has a registration number of HFH 315N, first registered in April 1975, but the road tax has been due since Sunday 1st June 1986. So was this episode filmed before then, or was it an already off-the-road prop requisitioned by the BBC? I hope Alan J.W Bell had filled in a Statutory Off-Road Notification form.

Andrew: There really is nothing sexual to Howard and Marina’s relationship, despite what Marina may crave. I think Howard just genuinely longs for companionship – the kind he clearly doesn’t get from Pearl, who over the years has essentially become his mother. Rather than carnal pleasure, he has a genuine interest in the pastimes the pair use as a cover story… in this instance tracking down ‘the caterpillar of the wood moth.’ Basically, his affair with Marina is an excuse for him to indulge the hobbies that they use as an excuse to be seen together!

Bob: Get away, nobody has ever said ‘I’m sorry I wasn’t able to show you the caterpillar of the wood moth’ with as much sexual frustration as Howard. It was a commonly-used euphemism amongst the pre-Viagra generation. There’s a real wistfulness to Marina’s response, too… ‘You look at me, you look at the wet grass, and all you think about is rheumatism.’ They’re lonely people, aren’t they? There’s a genuine sadness behind their slapstick. I think Ronnie Hazlehurst sees this too, and provides some lovely, melancholy music as they cycle away.

Andrew: I definitely side with Compo in this episode, moreso than usual. There is literally no reason for any of this business with the ejector seat. I think it comes back to what I’ve said before about Seymour’s fundamental selfishness. This time round, he doesn’t even come up with an excuse for the batty invention, or a decent justification for Compo’s safety being put at risk. Apart, of course, from the dangling carrot of impressing Nora Batty.

Bob: It’ll take more than a dangling carrot to impress Nora Batty. But yes, I’ve written ‘WHY ARE THEY DOING THIS?’ in my notes… in big letters too, to show I mean business. To be fair, I think there are hints that Seymour just sees a big commercial market for car-based ejector seats, and thinks he can claim both fortune and glory as a result of this episode. I empathise more with Clegg though, setting up a makeshift crash mat for Compo’s trail run. ‘At my age,’ he ponders, ‘there’s something deeply uninteresting about a mattress…’ I’m actually starting to wonder if there’s a big metaphor at work here. Everyone appears to be especially world-weary. and feeling their age, in this episode. Is the ejector seat an allegory for Seymour’s attempts to spring them all out of their torpor? Life is a trundling, untaxed, red Ford, and he’s desperate to boing them all out of it… even though we all know that, ultimately, the attempt will be futile. It’s possible I’m overthinking all this.

Andrew: OK, I’ve been disappointed with this episode so far, but I think the entire thing was worth it for Ivy’s clairvoyance! Desperate to sneak out and view Seymour’s test, Crusher tries to fool Ivy into thinking he is doing some work by leaving the vacuum cleaner on as he sneaks to the front door. As if by magic, however, she has disappeared from the kitchen and reappeared outside, ready to catch him!

Bob: That made me laugh, too… although is this the first hint that we’ve had that the cafe has a back door? I like Ivy’s line, as well: ‘Loonies of the calibre of those three will still be available long after closing time…’ There’s something terribly reassuring about that. Oh, and… Compo mentions ‘screaming his clacker off’! I’d never heard of the word ‘clacker’ until very recently, when my radio cohort Uncle Harry used it to describe the little dangly organ at the back of his throat, and I – shamefully – disputed its use in this context. But Compo is clearly using it in the same way, so I officially retract all of my doubts. Medical opinion describes it as the ‘uvula’, but where’s the fun in that?

Andrew: Given that Bill Owen has to be blue or yellow-screened onto the top of a car, I’m amazed that frail old Joe Gladwin continues to mount Wally’s motorbike and sidecar out on location. The cast often spoke of how frail he was in his later years. What a trooper.

Bob: I genuinely have nothing but admiration for Joe Gladwin and his achievements on this series; and, indeed, everything else he did in his extraordinary life and career. One day, when all of our other nonsense is out of the way, we need to work on a biography of him. There you go, it’s in print now. We’ll have to do it.

Andrew: Barry puts his foot on the accelerator, and the contraption is off. Seymour gives the signal for the ejector seat to be engaged, and… BANG. This is the first bit of slapstick in this episode that has really made me laugh. The cloud of smoke, accompanied by Compo tumbling forward, seems so unexpectedly violent that it really caught me by surprise! It’s a great moment, but then the episode just sort of stops, without a resolution. Do we really believe Seymour would give up at this stage? There’s no particular sense of an ending.

Bob: It’s an odd episode, and it does feel like it might have been written quite quickly. I tell you what, though… you have to hand it to the Summer Wine continuity machine. There’s a credit here for Maxton Beesley, who I’m guessing might have been one of the gathered throng watching the ejector seat test-run? Whatever, the same actor has a previous credit for Getting Sam Home, where he played ‘Colin’s Mate’, one of the toolbox vultures keen to raid the late Sam’s shed for ratchet screwdrivers and socket sets. We discussed him a little in the comments below our episode review! Three years later, was ‘Colin’s Mate’ drawn up to the moors on the promise of seeing Compo flying over a hedge? Of course he was. Like me, he just can’t resist the sight of old men boinging.

Andrew: I’m convinced that something went awry during the production of this episode, and I think it’s worth pointing out that it has the shortest running time of any episode of the series. That’s what happens when you forget to include subtext! I hope my birth hasn’t jinxed the series, because that was a bit of a duffer!

Bob: It’s all your fault. We were doing fine until you came along.

7 comments

Visit site

June 15, 2018 10:58 pmPosted 11 months ago

Nick Griffiths

I too felt that this episode was a bit unwritten, as if it was just “need to have something to Compo fall off” and that was it. It feels like a first draft. Or maybe the script over ran and some edits were needed, possibly adapting to the extended supporting cast lead to an overrun.

I believe the Flag and Further Snags is the first episode to allude to the Cafe’s back door as Compo gatecrashes the Bullock’s private party via it.

There are some really nice bits in this episode, but it defnitely has a bit of a hurried feel to it. Which is maybe not surprising, given that it’s in the middle of a twelve-episode series! A staggeringly long haul for all concerned. Anyone know if it had always been intended to be that long, or were some of the episodes meant to have been screened the previous year? There was no series at all in 1986.

It does beg that question, particularly if you take into account it seems odd to have Seymour introduced in a film episode and then not follow up on it for a year. I’ll have a gander in Alan Bell’s book and see if it offers any clues.

This is one of my favourite episodes, if only because it appears to be the only one filmed in my ‘home town’ of Saddleworth. The scenes with Marina and Howard were filmed at Dovestone (not Dovestones, a mistake everyone makes!) Reservoir, near the village of Greenfield, which is one of the villages of the parish of Saddleworth (this can get confusing!) . Greenfield is sort of the next village to Holmfirth, if you go along the A635 (known as the Isle of Skye Road, after a pub of that name, long gone). Its a surprise that this seems to be the only example of LOTSW being filmed in Saddleworth, as a visit to the area wold show, just the same landscapes and village architecture as in the villages of the Holme Valley. The Carriage House pub is about a quarter of a mile from the Saddleworth border, through the Standedge cutting on the A62.